


traduttore, traditore

by inklesspen



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Species Swap, Tentabulges, Xeno, Xenolinguistics, gillkink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklesspen/pseuds/inklesspen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose becomes a seatroll in an ectobiological accident. Jade helps her cope with the resulting alienation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	traduttore, traditore

Your name is Rose Lalonde, but ever since two nights ago, whenever you try to say it, it comes out as Rohseh Lalond. It's been two nights since you became a troll in the sort of ectobiological accident you would previously have dismissed as beyond all probability.

You expected some of the differences; gray skin, finned ears, a lukewarm body temperature, and a somewhat better understanding of quadrants. The linguistic difficulties were a bigger surprise. The game still translates like it always did, but you think and speak in Alternian now and some concepts simply don't translate. You had tried to reassure Jade that you were still her friend even when you looked like this, but you couldn't find the words; it turns out to be true that the Alternian for friend and enemy are the same: someone with whom you compete for resources and status.

Eventually you settled for giving her a hug. Her body heat shot through your body, even as you had to consciously hold back your newfound strength to keep from crushing her. She trusted you completely, you realized, no matter what you looked like. You wondered if what you were feeling was what trolls meant by "pity". Then you decided that if you're a troll now, you can determine what you mean by it for yourself.

This will be the third night of your new existence. You wake early in the evening, pull yourself out of the recuperacoon, and cycle the sopor back into the jury-rigged recycling system Equius had designed. Your horns still get in the way when you try to get dressed. You set aside yet another ripped shirt and settle for a button-up blouse and one of the skirts Kanaya's designed for you.

The central living block is unusually empty; normally this is one of the busiest times on the meteor, as dayshift humans wind down for the evening and nightshift trolls prepare for another cycle of exploring the depths of the meteor labs. With no ready source of grist, you've all resorted to cannibalizing the lab equipment and appearifying food from grocery stores on Earth and dead trolls' hives on Alternia. When you look in the kitchen, though, you find a poster on the refrigerator, red chalk on grubstruction paper, which proclaims that Cultural Movie Hour with Karkat and John started twenty minutes ago; somehow you missed the planning in all the trauma of figuring out your new anatomy. Since you can't hear the sounds of strife in the hallways, you surmise they're showing one of Karkat's movies rather than John's.

You pour yourself a bowl of grubflakes and add soya milk; it's a bit unnerving how Alternian cuisine involves so much cannibalism, but there's not much you can do about it now. Most Earth foodstuffs don't agree with troll digestion, as Terezi found out to her displeasure soon after you all arrived. When you return to the living block, you find Jade there, casually leaning against the bulkhead. "How are you doing tonight?" she inquires with typical enthusiasm.

"I feel rested," you reply, "and surprisingly peaceful, given what I am informed are my bloodcaste's tendencies." Eridan had given you a long talk about the seatroll condition the first night, after it became obvious that your transformation wasn't just going to "wear off". You're not entirely sure how much of what he said was exaggerated to flatter his own ego, but it still provided a context for your new existence.

You sit down on the couch and start eating. The grubflakes have the same comforting texture as everything else made from dead troll baby; Alternian food relies more on spices than you're used to, though of course nobody puts much spice in breakfast cereal. But they're filling enough and it's not like you have grub-free meal options right now.

Jade makes a face. "That's not really what I meant, you know," she says, flopping on the couch next to you. She sprawls her feet over the arm of the couch and rests her head on your thigh. "Are you adjusting any better to the new body?" She pokes nonchalantly at the claws on your hand holding the cereal bowl. You've alchemized some claw caps (Soft Paws && fingernail polish || fingerless gloves) which keep you from scratching your eyes out until you get accustomed enough to your new body that you don't rub your eyes when you're half asleep. It looks a little ridiculous having the red plastic covers on the tips of your hands, but that's a small price to pay for continued vision.

You finish your cereal and set the bowl aside, freeing your hand for her inspection. "I won't say I'm adapting perfectly," you tell her as she manipulates the joints in your fingers and examines the webbing between them. "However, until Sollux can reverse-engineer the operating system in that lab, the safest thing is to accept this and deal with the changes as best I can."

Jade works her way up your arm, prodding inquisitively at the chitin that lines the inside, above where the veins would be if you were still human. You suppose trolls have circulatory systems in roughly the same place; Feferi explained that the chitin served as armor when trolls were first evolving, a necessary defense among a species that fought with tooth and claw.

"I'm glad you care, though," you say, turning your least fang-filled smile upon her. "This would be so much more difficult if it were not for the presence people I've learned I can rely upon." The lexical gap is still painful. This ungainly construction is the closest you've managed to come to describing the relationship you had — have with the three remaining humans. You've tried having Jade pronounce the English word "friend", tried making the same sounds with these alien lips, but you still can't say it smoothly enough. You think your faculty with English is the part of who you were that you miss the most, much more than the inky-black skin you grew up with or your eye color that's turned to troll yellow. "Why aren't you at the movie with everyone else?" It's certainly nice to relax with Jade, but she hadn't been here when you first came out of your respiteblock.

"I could feel you'd gotten up," she replies. You blink at her, and she explains. "Space powers, I guess? I can feel the meteor moving through the void, and I can feel us moving through the corridors. It's feels kind of weird." Then her face turns red. "Not that it's anything like how weird you must be feeling; I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

You shush her with one carefully-placed fingertip. "It's okay, Jade. I won't snap at you over something like that." You get up and return the bowl to the foodblock. When you return, Jade has flipped onto her stomach and is propped up on her elbows. She looks up at you at an angle that must be giving her a sore neck and certainly gives you a look down her shirt. She grins again. "Like what you see?"

You laugh at her artless manner. "Come on," you tell her, flipping her over and helping her to her feet. "Let me show you what I've figured out about troll physiology."

She walks with you to your respiteblock— your room. Your old bed is pushed up against the wall to make room for the recupercoon, with your knitting projects and discarded outfit choices scattered across it. You brush those aside and gently pull her down next to you.

"You've seen the claws, of course. And troll skin is remarkably tough even where there's no chitin; otherwise they would likely bleed out any time they slept without sopor." You brush your hair back behind your earfins and invite her to lean in for a closer look. "I have no idea why seatrolls have fin-shaped earlobes; it can't be that much of an evolutionary benefit." She takes the proffered fin between thumb and forefinger and the heat of her touch sends shivers down your spine. "It's —" and you gasp as she runs her thumb up the fin and back down. "— Remarkably sensitive."

"It's so pretty, though!" she says, and runs a finger along the edge of each of your ears. The sensation is beyond belief; if you were still human you think you'd be reduced to a helpless, quivering state, but apparently troll bodies take a little more to get going. Even so, Jade clearly has no idea what she's doing to you. "I just love how elegant they look. They suit you, Rose."

You give her a weak smile. "Jade, I think what we're doing here is basically seatroll foreplay." You can't deny you haven't thought about her, but you never thought your first time would be in an alien body and what if she isn't interested the way you seem to be? Except she's now unbuttoning her shirt, which suggests she has at least some interest.

"Well, I'm game if you are," she chirps. She tosses the shirt carelessly to one side and unhooks her bra. Her breasts aren't large, but they seem well suited to her athletic frame. Her delicate nipples command your attention for a few seconds; she notices and brings your hands up to cup them. You wish again you had your old human palms and fingers, but even with the tough skin you have now, it's amazing to feel them stiffen under your touch. "What do you think?" Shyness doesn't seem to be in Jade's repertoire, but you sense she's making an effort to be vulnerable here.

"I think you're amazing," you reply. You pull off your own blouse, at the same time dislodging the scarf you'd wrapped around your neck. Female trolls don't really have breasts, you've found; while there are organs in roughly the same place, they're vestigial, remnants of an age in troll evolution when a female might have to metamorphose into a mother grub to keep the the gene pool stable. They certainly aren't sensitive the way you remember your breasts feeling when you used to explore your body, late at night.

Jade's gaze alights on your gills, low on your torso and just below the grubscars where the middle legs of your entirely hypothetical grub instar would have been. She emits an appreciative "ooh" and flutters her fingers just above the surface of your skin, apparently unsure if it's safe to touch them. If you're honest, you're not sure either; they're sensitive enough to feel the air currents she's stirring up and you have no idea what will happen if she touches them, but in the spirit of the endeavor, you say "go on, feel them."

She does, ever so gently, and the brush of her fingertips is utterly unlike anything you've ever felt before. You realize you're making a soft keening noise and Jade looks at you questioningly, but you urge her to continue. You feel something atavistic, deep inside your brain, warning you how vulnerable you are right now, and you decide you like that feeling too. Something quivers in your groin; you're still so unfamiliar with your anatomy that you don't know if it's the "bulge" or "nook" or something else.

You can hardly bear to break contact with Jade but you quickly shimmy out of your skirt and remove your undergarments. When you look down, you can see the same thing she's looking at: the bone bulge where your pubic mound used to be. Tucked just underneath is the tiny opening of your nook. You think you understand that well enough, based on comparing what the other trolls have told you to your own knowledge of human anatomy, but the bulge is completely outside your experience so far.

Jade returns one hand to your left ear, petting it gently, while she reaches for your nook with the other. She curls one finger into the opening and you nearly lose control of your limbs. You pull back and let yourself fall onto the bed. "Wow, you're pretty tight, Rose," she says. "Are you sure this is okay?"

"Do that again!" you insist, placing a hand on her side to steady yourself. You're only a little surprised at the level of need in your voice; Jade has awoken instincts and drives in your body and you need to see this through.

"All right," she says and she gently slides her finger back inside you. "I think you have room for another finger," she adds, and suits action to words. The stimulation is apparently enough to bring your bulge into play; it slides out from behind the bone sheath and curls around Jade's wrist. "Uh, Rose? Did you know your tentacles have suckers?" You weren't expecting that! Apparently your particular variation on troll genitals splits into four tentacles. It's the strangest thing to feel them wrapping around Jade's wrist and pulling her closer to you.

"Are they hurting you?" you manage to ask. The last thing you want is to injure her, especially after she's been so accommodating. But she adjusts her position and continues exploring your nook with her fingers. You feel amazingly full, but you continue to get more and more aroused. You're surprised you haven't found a climax yet. "Keep going!" you urge her. She bites her lip cutely and concentrates on her task, her idle hand coming to rest on your gills. The combined sensation takes your breath away; you gasp "Yes!" and twist your torso so her hand rubs across the filaments.

She takes the hint and begins to explore your gill even as her other hand is busy inside you. In response, your slits expand and her finger runs between the edge of two of them. At the same time she accidentally twists her fingers inside your nook just so, and that's enough. Your first orgasm as a troll is mindblowing; your vision and hearing fade away as touch becomes your entire world. It feels like your entire body is quivering under Jade's caress. You manage to spare half a thought for worry; if you hurt her with your seatroll strength during this, you'll never get over it. But when you come back to the world, she seems fine. "That... that was unbelievable. Amazing," you tell her, and lean in to kiss her lips.

The taste of her is enough to distract you for a moment, but eventually you realize the sheets, along with Jade's pants, are soaked with what you presume to be your genetic material. You try to apologize but she waves it off. "I guess that's why they use buckets," she says, and dives back into the kiss.

You begin think you'll be able to adapt to this after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This came about in one of lantadyme's Google Doc writeparties back in January. It's my first time writing NSFW stuff and I'm sure there's a lot I could improve on. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it!


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